Culture

How a fake war photojournalist totally fooled media organisations around the world

Someone has pulled off one of the most spectacular cons in the history of photojournalism by tricking established media outlets and his 120,000+ Twitter followers into thinking that he was a conflict photographer.

"Eduardo Martins," a blond and handsome 32-year-old from Sao Paulo, Brazil, supposedly survived childhood leukemia to become a sought-after, accomplished war photojournalist for the UN with a passion for surfing.

His fake images of conflict in Gaza, Syria, and Iraq were delivered to agencies such as Getty Images, Zuma, and NurPhoto and published in The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde,The Telegraph, and BBC Brazil.

Except all of this was exposed as a lie, thanks to the attentive eye of some fellow photographers and a BBC Brazil journalist named Natasha Ribeiro.

The first suspicions

The first person to call him out was war photographer and Waves site columnist Fernando Costa Netto, who'd befriended Martins months ago and even published an article praising his work.

After receiving tip-offs from news organisations that Martins might be a fake, Netto got in touch with Martins to ask for clarification.

But the guy immediately deleted his Instagram account, his homepage and emailed Netto saying he was going into hiding:

"I'm in Australia. I've made the decision to spend a year in a van. I'll delete everything online, including internet. I want to be in peace, we'll see each other when I get back. For anything, write me at dudumartisn23@yahoo.com. A big hug. I'm going to delete the zap. God be with you. A hug."

More evidence

Another Brazilian photographer, Ignacio Aronovich, read Netto's story and started digging into this weird case, to try to understand how on earth did Martins manage to fool the world's media organisations and agencies.

In a long Facebook post, Aronovich noted how some of Martins' pictures immediately looked strange to him.

In one occasion, for instance, the photographer appears with the shutter button on the left side of the camera, while almost all types of cameras have the shutter button on the right:

Image: screengrab/facebook/Marcelo Santos Braga

So he took images from Martins' interview at Recount Magazine and just flipped them horizontally before doing a Google reverse image search. And voila. The true author of some of the photos was revealed to be the Turkey-based American photographer Daniel C. Britt:

Martins was able to get away with the reverse image search trick by cropping and mirroring the photos he lifted from other photographers. This way, he could fool news organisations who placed their trust into his work.

Quite bonkers, isn't it.

The pictures' description was also inaccurate. Photos credited as being in Aleppo, Syria, were taken by Britt some 90km away in Kafr Nabl. Another image credited as being from Azaz, Syria is from Ma'arat al-Nu'man, 126km away, Aronovich said.

A fake Martins picture used to illustrate a Wall Street Journal story about Syria.

Image: screengrab

The real photographer, Britt, told Mashable he doesn't really follow his content online, so he had no idea his photos were being resold "by a social media geek for the last two years."

Many of those photos belong to a story that appeared on Playboy magazine in 2014, he said.

"Eduardo Martins, whoever he is, was clever enough to slip passed the editors of several magazines and The Wall Street Journal," Britt said.

"Like I said to other journalists, I'm just disappointed that Eduardo Matins bastardized the photo captions and gave people yet another reason to distrust the news. Each photograph was part of a specific time and place."

"Some of the people depicted in them are no longer with us," Britt added. "Their lives mattered. The lives of my interpreters, fixers and everyone who helped us along the way mattered. The value of these photos is more than the pittance Eduardo got from the agencies or his number of 'Likes' on Facebook."

But there's more, as highlighted by eagle-eyed Natasha Ribeiro of BBC Brazil.

The organisation is among those who were deceived by Martins into publishing a long profile of him based on his life story, which they've since retracted.

Among other things, Martins said people "need to see this reality," meaning the horrors of war in Iraq.

Image: screengrab/bbc brazil

But his words immediately raised suspicion for Ribeiro, who collaborates for BBC Brazil from the Middle East. In an investigation published Sept. 1, Ribeiro, with the help of other journalists, dug into Martins' life and couldn't find anyone who'd met him in person.

"The suspicion increased when, in Iraq, amid the war scene that Eduardo claimed to portray, Brazilian journalists realized that he was not known there," BBC Brazilreported.

"No one, among authorities and non-governmental organizations in Syria or Iraq, has ever seen or heard about Eduardo Martins."

Today in photojournalism scandals— a widely published photog who not only stole images, but may not exist at all https://t.co/PFH73K5ZOL

For instance, Martins gave a story and pictures to Brazil's VICE about the battle with the Peshmerga, but two other Brazilian journalists who were with the Peshmerga during that period told the BBC they've never met him.

But there are more inconsistencies.

Back in August, the fake photographer had told BBC Brazil through WhatsApp that he was working with the United Nations.

"I am a humanitarian (volunteer) in the United Nations (UN) field. I work in the organization of refugee camps," he said.

As you can expect, no records of Martins working for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees were found, as confirmed by the organisation's press chief Adrian Edwards.

Image: screengrab/recountmagazine.com

Martins even made up imaginary girlfriends, using them to communicate to journalists and somewhat add authenticity to his profile.

BBC Brazil contacted six of them who admitted to connecting to Martins only through social networks. "None of them met him personally," the site reported.

Mashable contacted NurPhoto, one of the agencies that distributed Martins' pictures, for comment.

The agency's CEO Manuel Romano said it "immediately removed all content, images, and photos that were provided by Eduardo Martins and alerted all his customers and partners to follow suit."

"When first contacting NurPhoto through its website in 2015, Mr. Martins acknowledged himself as a photographer claiming to be the author of a full portfolio of professional photos and images. Moreover, those images were available on both his social media profiles and official website."

"After careful consideration of all facts reported in the news, considering that, as of now, it seems impossible to get hold of Mr. Eduardo Martins and seeing that his personal website and social media profiles are currently offline, we fear that our agency may have been victim of a fraud perpetrated by someone that is not the author of his photos and whose conduct is causing serious reputational damages to our company."

Romano added that the company has now filed a criminal case with Italian police against Martins. Mashable also contacted Getty Images for comment.

The real identity

So who's really the guy whose identity was stolen?

BBC Brazilidentified him as 32-year-old British surfer Max Hepworth-Povey, from Cornwall.

Hepworth-Povey found out about the con job through an editor at Wavelength magazine, for whom he writes for:

"I was relaxing, sipping wine, when a friend from Wavelength magazine contacted me saying that someone has stolen my identity in a kind of a prank on internet," he said.

The surfer, who lives and works in northern Spain, near Santander, said some of the pictures are from an old Facebook profile that he disabled some two years ago.

"When my friend showed me the pictures, I thought it was a joke, but actually my photos were stolen," Hepworth-Povey, who has deleted his Instagram account, said. "It's crazy that some random guy decided to use my image while there are some many options throughout the Internet."

He added that he hates the idea of "glamourising a country at war" as the conman did.

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